


rips

by plantyourtreeswithme



Category: Lost
Genre: Alternate Timelines, An Exploration of Time, Angst and Tragedy, Blood and Violence, Canonical Character Death, Explicit Language, M/M, Multiple Realities, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:22:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25103878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plantyourtreeswithme/pseuds/plantyourtreeswithme
Summary: Desmond takes time in his hands and rips open the seams - lets it spill into his head, pour all over his arms. He sees trees arching out, reaching upwards: timelines branching off, multitudinous and endless. He turns the key and feels it all wash over him.His life unfolds before him - a linen picnic blanket, checkered red and white - and then refolds itself into a neat little pile. He is to take these pieces and try to mold something worthwhile of them.Sisyphus laughs.
Relationships: Desmond Hume/Charlie Pace
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	rips

**Author's Note:**

> I'll forever be upset over Charlie's death. (This still doesn't have a happy ending, though.)

There is a reality - if you peer closely at a hole in the fabric, peel back the tears in the wide-rimmed maw of time and space -

There is a universe in which Desmond doesn't get his flashes.

He turns the key, and wakes up in the forest - and brushes hands with Charlie one morning as they both reach for the cereal. Charlie never has a reason to get Desmond drunk off swiped MacCutcheon; yet, they drink together anyway. Sidelong glances turn to hands splayed across chests, ripping buttons off Desmond's half-open shirt and then - hands where they _shouldn't_ _be_ (Charlie's got a bird), but, god, if it doesn't just feel...

Then waking up to Claire's shrill voice, calling for Charlie across the way - and the hot sand - coarse against his bare back, and Charlie's - his hand on Desmond's skin, and - "Wake up," Desmond says; "Claire's looking for you."

They don't speak again. Shame pounds hot within their veins, blooms beneath cheeks.

Or maybe Charlie's struck by lightning a few days earlier, Claire at his side; and Desmond didn't know because how could he?

Aaron wails a few tents away, in Sun's arms, his harsh cries ringing in Desmond's shellshocked ears.

He rolls the charred bodies over and he weeps. He finds his folded-up picture of him and Penny, and holds it to his chest.

But it never happens; because Desmond takes time in his hands and rips open the seams - lets it spill into his head, pour all over his arms. He sees trees arching out, reaching upwards: timelines branching off, multitudinous and endless. He turns the key and feels it all wash over him.

His life unfolds before him - a linen picnic blanket, checkered red and white - and then refolds itself into a neat little pile. He is to take these pieces and try to mold something worthwhile of them.

Sisyphus laughs.

He watches him die. He dies himself. He's consumed by intuition, inklings; cannot sleep.

In every iteration, Charlie Pace comes to him, and they fall in love.

* * *

There is a timeline where Desmond loses Charlie to a fucking tripwire, an arrow caught inside his throat.

He saw it coming; he sees it happen. He doesn't move in time. Shock numbs his limbs, and Charlie chokes on his own blood, and Desmond kisses him over and over and over again, 'till his lips are stained copper and the light has faded from those eyes.

Or - he can't quite remember - perhaps he does push Charlie in time, and the arrow catches him instead - or maybe they make it all the way to the middle of the ocean, and Charlie says, "My greatest hits," and hands him the list face-up, folded skyward, and _1\. The day I met you_ is at the bottom of the page, scrawled thick in jagged lines, all caps.

Maybe even before that: the two of them wander off, on the premise of adventure and boar meat - and find a little grotto. Strip themselves of their shirts and pants, trip over belt buckles in their eagerness to swim. Maybe Charlie grins at him underwater and surges forward, and maybe their lips meet. Maybe Desmond says, "What was that for?" when they resurface, and fear flashes over Charlie's face - "I dunno, just felt like it." (Maybe he tells him not to be afraid; asks him to do it again.)

Charlie looks at him with sea-green eyes, sea glass-blue. Desmond knocks him out with the oar when he isn't looking and dives down to the wet porch. He doesn’t remember Bonnie's code; he barely survived boarding school band. He can’t recall what chord progressions are. The message never goes through, but the people from the boat come anyway. He drowns so that Charlie can live.

Or - it's possible he's messed this up, gotten confused. The details here are messy, hazy; slip just beyond his reach. He's struck by Mikhail's hail, and Charlie comes back up to find his bullet-ridden body, strewn across the canoe. The sea laps at his hair and Charlie cries; pulls him safe into his arms _(too late, too late)_ and lets the blood pool against his chest. Paddles back to shore and lays him in the sand, digs his grave alone. Claire watches.

There's an ending where they both survive the Looking Glass, and sit upon the beach. They laugh until their ribs get tough. Desmond holds him so close, it hurts.

Charlie comes with him and Sayid on the helicopter, and clasps him tight when he can't remember who they are.

For one long, aching moment of relief, Desmond loses his mind - and Charlie is his constant, when he's forgotten what year it is. He sees him on the street corner, singing "Wonderwall" as rain pours down and licks at his guitar strings, and then flickers back to the not-really-future. Lets Charlie just hold him while he sobs, blood dancing at the corner of his mouth.

Charlie stands on the boat deck as it explodes. Charlie jumps from the helicopter and drowns. Charlie stays on the island with Claire, and dies in a way Desmond doesn't see, and he tries to forget.

* * *

He feels an ending where they hug on the tarmac; where he cries into Charlie's shoulder, dirt and sand still caked to their bodies like second skin, like armor. The cameras click and flash while they hold hands under the press conference table - and then later, in the morning, Charlie says, "Let's go get coffee, Des," and dust swims in the hotel room light, and he can't help but say yes.

Charlie moves in with him because it's cheaper to split rent, and Charlie climbs into his bed because it's lonely to sleep separately - and then Charlie's gone full domestic, and Desmond wakes one morning to find him making pancakes in the kitchen, humming the harmony along with a Drive Shaft song playing on the stereo. Desmond's chest aches at the sight of him: half-mixed batter on his nose, an apron tied about his waist. His hair clean-shaven, and the bags under his eyes mostly gone.

"Oi, Des," he says when he spots him smiling in the doorframe. "D'you think you could handle minding these for a bit? Gonna run out to the corner shop, I wanted - well, this was supposed to be a surprise, but - I forgot to get blueberries, and I know they're your favorite, and -"

"Yes, love, go," he says, and presses a kiss to Charlie's cheek as he grins and flies for the door in that cheeky rockstar way; a dog wagging its tail in purest, utmost joy.

The flashes don't come to him anymore, so he doesn't know Charlie gets hit by a car crossing the street.

(Maybe he does - maybe he follows Charlie outside and yanks him back before his foot can leave the sidewalk.)

Or the stage floor collapses under Charlie's feet at the reunion concert, and the guitar neck snaps off with a sound that isn't nearly as awful as the one Charlie's makes. A light fixture falls and hits his head in just the right place, and it takes Desmond ages to get all the blood out of the carpet. He catches the flu and gets quite sick, and never got 'round to getting his shot this year.

Desmond gave it up years ago. He has stitched up the seams, patched up the gashes. He never sees it coming.

* * *

Or maybe he goes to Penny.

He finds her, names his son for Charlie. He lies in bed each night and watches Charlie cross himself, over and over - suspended, swathed in murky blue. Sees the brightness of his eyes; the way he sobs against the glass, his hand pressed flat. Waits for his tears to fall, roll down his cheeks. (They never do.)

_His eyes are so blue._

Penny says, "You're not yourself, you haven't been yourself," and he says nothing, but agrees. Stares silently at her: withered husk, eyes numb.

(Yes, it's this one. He remembers now.)

His son looks up at him with blue eyes, but they are Penny's: pond water off a duck's back; puddles on the sidewalk while it rains. Blond hair that could’ve been, can’t be - curls at his little temples, bounces when he laughs and grabs for his father, fingers tugging gently at Desmond's nose.

He looks at his son, sees everything that never was. He cannot smile. He is but a shadow of himself.

Charlie croons in Desmond's dreams, and life goes on.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this piece, please feel free to leave me a comment and/or kudos!


End file.
